|
| |
| STILL Awaiting a photo
(18OCT2000)
|
John emailed me and John Milton Friday 15 SEP
2000: |
| John - I got your letter the other day. Yes,
I have been pretty slack in not getting back to Dayle previously, and for
that I apologise. In fact, I have been flat out for most of this
year at work (Y2K, then a takeover and then GST just to top it all off).
However, I have now taken some leave (3 months in fact), so I now have a
bit of time to myself. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture I can
send you - for one thing, I always seem to be on the other side of the
camera, and for another, I don't have a fancy digital camera or a
digitiser. Nevertheless, I can give you some details of what I have
been doing for the last 35 years or whatever. I was lucky enough to
get a Commonwealth Scholarship and went off to Adelaide Uni straight after
the apprenticeship finished and did a combined Bachelor of Science and
Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical). I got a cadetship with the
Department of Supply (as it was then) during the last year or so to help
pay the bills. I spent a number of years at WRE after Uni and
(amongst other things) worked on Project Jindalee (Stage A), spending
quite a lot of time in Alice Springs. In about 1978, I left and
joined Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) working as a Software
Specialist. By about 1988, I had been promoted to the position of
Principal Support Specialist, and was travelling all over the place,
rarely spending more that a week at home in a month. Needless to
say, I couldn't keep up that pace and chucked in the towel. About
the end of 88, I met Lesley and we eventually got married in Feb 89.
Without a doubt, the best thing that ever happened to me. I had a
job at Elders at this stage, in their Videotext department.
Videotext is best regarded as the precursor to the World Wide Web.
Elders system was called Farmlink and had lots of stuff for farmers (eg
weather reports, stock prices, fertiliser calculators, email and so
on). Towards the end of 89, Elders sold off this business to a mob
in Melbourne. We could all keep our jobs if we wanted to move to
Melbourne. Anyway, this lead me to start working in the MIS
department at Bridgestone in Jan 1990. I have now been there over 10
and a half years and I am thinking its time to move on again. I
would like to be able to retire like you John, but unfortunately, it seems
to be desirable to eat once in a while, so it looks like I will have to
keep on working for a while yet - bummer! Anyhow, that's about my
lot. Lesley and I have no kids, 4 cats, a couple of birds and about
a dozen goldfish of various types.
Cheers - John Mackenzie |
 |
| Island Lagoon (c 1963) with Geoff Geue
enjoying the view |
|
